New what if opinion and mad prince [spoiler discussion]
After finishing the new What If, I can confidently say it’s one of the best ones so far. While the character interactions (especially Subaru with Otto’s descendant and Julius’s spirits) and Beatrice’s portrayal were great, the real standout is the Mad Prince.
What makes him so interesting isn’t just his design or concept, but his overall presence as a character. He already feels like a fully realized high-tier antagonist, not just a one-off “What If” concept.
From what we’ve seen, his abilities alone are enough to justify placing him among the strongest characters. His blessings give him insane combat scaling—becoming stronger when alone, improving through repetition, adapting mid-fight, etc. But more importantly, his actual portrayal backs this up.
It took Clind, Mezoreia (a great Yin and Fire spirit), Arakiya, Petra, and Subaru just to hold their ground against him. And even then, they didn’t defeat him the chapter ends on an open conclusion without showing the final outcome of the fight. In fact, they said that without Petra’s help, they wouldn’t even have had a real chance by the end.
Despite this, I’ve seen multiple arguments claiming he won’t appear in the main story saying that we don't have enough time to develop it or that it would be complicated to put it in the main story
But personally I disagree
First, Tappei has consistently proven that he can create and develop incredible antagonists in a relatively short amount of time. If you combine all their appearances across their respective arcs, characters like Petelgeuse, Louis, and Todd are effectively developed within roughly half an arc or less yet they remain some of the best antagonists in the series.
Second, there is already precedent. the author said he won't introduce halibel in the main story but He changed and decided to include it in the main story many years later. The Mad Prince could follow the exact same path.
Third, from a narrative standpoint, creating such a unique and powerful character only to never reuse him would feel like wasted potential
I think that despite everything that remains to be discovered in history, we still have some time. Based on what we currently know, there should theoretically be around two arcs left after Arc 10 one being potentially twice as long as Arc 3, and another one that I think will be about 80 chapters at least. That would leave us with roughly 250+ chapters minimum, although this number could end up being higher or lower depending on how many mysteries still need to be resolved and how the story concludes.